Azumi
by UnagiKeki
Summary: Six chapters of walking through the best and worst days of his life- with her at his side. LeeOC, side NejiTen. -FINISHED! FIXED!-
1. Six

**Author's Note: This story has been a real labor of love. I had an adorable LeeOC story some time ago, and it hurt my heart to leave it behind...so in keeping with the changing audience and how I've grown since then, I've written what is hopefully a more palatable story of what love is supposed to be.**

**This story follows Lee and his wife over their lifetime, and the chapters will go backwards, revealing their story. It's a pretty dynamic idea, but I think it turned out... moderately good. Please let me know how I did!**

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_Six-_

The door creaks open a sliver, and Lee, across the room, rises instinctively. A little girl with raven hair and round emerald eyes glances in, mouth rigid with the silent confidence of one who Knows.

"Shuuko!" the tall but stooped man exclaims as he dips into a bow; the crackling of his spine as he come back up makes them both giggle, shattering the child's solemn expression. She smiles, and the world is suddenly lighter.

"And what business does my lovely granddaughter have on this side of town?" the senior asks, already pouring her a glass of unspeakably green tea; they're the only ones in the family who can stand the stuff.

"Momma wanted me to bring you this, _ojii-chan_." she says, holding aloft a large, vanilla-colored envelope as she dances to the table. The man's viscous face, weathered and heavy, shifts grimly; he takes the package, but pauses when he notices the lack of a chakra seal. It's not that important a document, or his daughter would have had one of the new Jounin deliver it. A clump of aged papers lands in his lap, and he begins to browse through them indifferently.

And then he sees her, in startling clarity, staring at him through the decades in glossy, monochrome youth. He slopes slowly in half with a gusty exhale, elbows on his knotty knees, holding her between his old hands. The moment steals him fully from this place, back to the verdant, mottled fields of better days; it has been so long since he's seen this photograph. And it strikes him again, in that one part of his gut, how long it has been since he has seen her.

At length, Shuuko bends over to see what her grandpa is so enthralled with. "Is that Momma when she was little?" she asks.

After a long moment, Lee tells her no, removing his thick-framed eyglasses. "This is your grandmother, when she was a Genin."

"No way," the girl says, leaning in for closer scrutinization. From across time, these sets of eyes meet, and the electricity in the moment is not lost even upon one so young; Shuuko sets down her cup and lightly removes the greasy, black-and-white picture from Lee's grasp. "She looks-"

"Just like you," he finishes, a smile slowly blooming across the entirety of his face. "The same eyes."

The little girl stares for a moment longer, before starling: "Oh, grandpa! I was supposed to meet my team! Sorry, I need to go-"

Lee chuckles, eyes crimping. "It's okay, sweetheart- I love you! Come over when you're done."

"Love you, too! Bye!" And off go the patter of her little, sandaled feet, chasing what was once his destiny.

There is only silence in her wake, a quiet less and less often interrupted by visitors of the Rock family. His children try to include him in their routines, - they really do- but the Shinobi life is prying this loving family apaprt: Ayu is crunching out a paperwork catastrophe in preparation for the coronation of the new Hokage, and Seiji is ever off with that ANBU group of his, never giving his father a moment's respite from worry. His children are in their late twenties, but Lee still catches himself missing them the way he did when they toddled on socked feet to the back door, to wave as he left for a mission he might not come back from. He feels that desperation occasionally, and needs to just hold them sometimes, to remind himself that he's here. He feels the same way about the grandchildren: Shuuko, Hariya, and Minori, who are coming up in the fashion of the Shinobi before them. Hariya will be entering the Chunin exams come this summer, for the first time; Shuuko is a recent Genin graduate, and Minori entered the Ninja Academy just last year, at age five. He wants them to be greater than he was, stronger and safer, but he also wishes he could keep them close forever.

Lee sighs, takes a sip of tea; his ashen hair has grown shaggy with unkemptness, and the five-pound tire he's so adamantly fought since his forties is back- and it's brought luggage. It's all beginning to weigh on his bones, but he's so old as to be comfortable with his own mortality. It is his wife's mortality, however, that he is finally growing accustomed to acknowledging; she has been dead for nearly five years, and everyone thinks it's about time. He's not despondent, but not who he was, either; as if some vital limb of his were missing.

Rock Lee is on the way out of this world, from training to death and just wearing out. He glances at the rutted tabletop, at her age-old gray eyes as they glance worriedly at the general clutter of his new bachelor life; at how the secret worries are beginning to show in his face, the fears that he's become useless. It's only when you're alone that you realize how much of yourself is tied up in other people. Rock Lee's identity for the past fifty years has been his passion, protecting what was dearest to him; the diminishment of his purpose in the universe puzzles him deeply; once he was a great protector of Konoha, but now he and his wife, their generation are just papers in an envelope, released to save space in filing cabinets.

He knows, in his hollow old head, that his phasing-out is just a part of passing the Will of Fire. But who he was and is cannot reconcile the idea of leaving all of this behind; his children, his reputation, the things he's fought to prove of himself.

This wonderful world that he and Rie created, together.

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**AN: Please, PLEASE review; I beg of you, even if it's only two syllables. Let me know that my long hours have _some_ fruition...**


	2. Five

**_EDIT: _Why didn't anybody TELL ME that the formatting lines were off! This story has looked like CRAP for so long and I didn't even know it! -dies-**

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_Five-_

Fear has many meanings. It's what coiled in her stomach when she felt their sleeping chests for breath, what drove her weapons through the flesh of mine enemies; it's defined her, been denied to her, and it's what chills her as she settles against the familiar terrain of his side, letting her papers scatter across the living-room floor. Lee stirs from beneath the beady flannel blanket, flipping over with the pattern of the couch cushion imprinted on his cheeks. She's close enough to note that his temples are beginning to grey, and that he's shrinking within his once-taut skin.

"What is wrong?" he asks sleepily, groping at one eye. Old. They're getting old, and she knows it's inevitable. But today she had a tinge of something that she hasn't felt in a long time, since her daughter disappeared behind the Jounin exam center's door or Komeyo disappeared in the market; since the days she spent in the salt-swollen water, or in The War.

Wrapping her arms around his fuzzy middle, Rie lets her shoes fall to the floor, and curls against the length of the back she has never distrusted, the shoulders she has never doubted and has no reason to.

"… You never told me what the worst thing was."

* * *

Karuo's lips are trailing up her neck when she shudders with the fullness of the north wind, the breath leaving her in one thin gasp. It takes a few seconds, even of him gently slapping her face, before Ayu comes around. She is shaken, and cannot think why. Doesn't want to. She clutches him fiercely for the rest of the night, and there is no newly-wed bliss.

They train on and off, mostly because the younger ones are trampling down the skills market. Their role is to teach now, but Lee still prefers a bout to remind himself that he's 'still got it'.

For a brilliant, soaring moment he has the upper hand- and then Shikamaru does precisely what he does in every battle, which is use the ridiculous omnipresence of light against you. Lee is caught by the shadow of the shadow of the shading in his bright-orange legwarmers, when his foot connects with Shikamaru's face. He allows himself to slither onto the ground, trapped within the infamous Kagemane technique. He allows Shikamaru to smirk with triumph, to revel and monologue about how effort is useless; without moving he was able to trap Lee, and why the heck does he come around and not let Shikamaru just get old without some sort of challenge every month-

* * *

It took twenty years, but Lee finally gets him back. When the aging Nara finally releases him from the jutsu's hold, Lee unfolds his clenched fist; the designated 'king' piece of Shikamaru's favored chess game falls into the grass.

"Told you I could take your king," Lee grins, savoring the sweetness of victory.

Shikamaru just looks at him for a long time. It's been twenty years since Lee sat down to his first game of Shougi, and was thoroughly beaten. Twenty years since Ino yakked to him from the kitchen that he could never hope to beat Shikamaru, and twenty years since Lee had stomped out of their living room, swearing all sorts of physical punishments upon himself if he could 'never' do just that.

Lee's determination is just like light- even when it's high noon and it shouldn't persist, it still casts some advantage, a shadow to attack from.

* * *

Seiji was never one given to emotions; when his brother died, he seemed to lose all patience for the process, and so eliminated it altogether. He loves his father and mother, his sister and all they stand for, but there will always be a score he cannot settle; a goalmouth that he'll never reach, and thus his frustration.

So Lee's not hurt when the boy barely allows himself to be embraced; Rie said her goodbyes at the house, wanting father and son to have this time together.

But Lee holds his lanky son for a long while, still; he remembers the milk-breath, the loose teeth and boo-boos, and wants to take everything back with this boy. He wants to tell Seiji that it's not his fault, and that he doesn't have to go running off into the woods forever to make up for what happened between them.

But he's finally realized that Seiji has to come to this himself; there comes a point where the kids stop listening, and that's where you've failed them. He won't forgive Lee, and Lee won't ever forgive himself, either.

"Remember the mice," he tells him, and then lets go.

* * *

There's still the anger, but Neji's head is suddenly lighter as Hizashi withdraws his finger from the younger man's forehead in a swirl of life-colored green. The curse mark, with but a hand seal, is lifted from his being; if only the pain, the bipolar diving between white-mad guilt and black glee could go with it; he's going to be right, Tenten will take him back. He can have the best of both worlds, the vengeance and the girl; the strength and the weakness, the venom and the antidote. As the dying Hizashi relinquishes Hanabi's birthright into Neji's possession, the ceremony fades in his mind. This is the big time and it's his, his name and his title and his _reward-_

He goes stomping out, forehead still bleeding from the removal of the mark, not seeing the pain in Hizashi's blind, milky eyes; the shuddering of his cousin Hinata, who can only wonder what Neji will do with this new power over them. Why would he pursue this if not for some malicious intent? Why tear new wounds in heedless revenge, for the sake of scars long healed over? Why, why, why?

That's what he asks himself when a representative from the morgue comes to fetch him; so sad, the mission didn't go well. She has no family, can you sign off so she can be cremated? We knew she was close to you, Neji… Neji, are you alright?

No, he's not; because if he knew it would be too late to have it all, he would have preferred just to have Tenten. What's important is suddenly very clear, as well as how goddamned wrong he was. Why, why didn't he see before…?

* * *

"Mice," Ayu prays into her first son's hair, the same as she has done for both of her daughters.

"I'll tell you about the mice, and someday you'll understand."

Once she's presentable, her father demands to be let in; picky Sakura, half-dead as she is, won't allow any men into the delivery room. Lee seems to be smiling for both Seiji and Komeyo, trying to make up for their absences; Seiji could have delayed his expedition to Raigakure, but chose not to wait for his nephew's birth.

Her hand has not left the bony comfort of her mother's, and her mother has not left her; Ayu is getting good at this business, but it never hurts to have the ones you love with you when you're in the deepest, most gratifying pain imaginable.

Rie holds Rock Minori, her grandson, while Lee praises his son-in-law Karuo. It is for Rie that Minori opens his welded-shut kitten eyes, as if he knew how precious their time together was.

* * *

"Promises, promises-" he reminds her.

"Promises," she repeats, and then dies.

Rock Lee remains in the cave with his dead wife for two, three days, until the Konoha Medic Corps find him and patch him back up. When they're done, he carries her hitate-ate home, her Chunin vest and her personal effects. He walks to their house, lays all of this on the ground and climbs into bed, the cold indention beside him not even real yet.

He wants to tell her: he knows what the worst thing is, now.


	3. Four

**_EDIT:_ The lines went missing when I first posted this, so it's looked retarded for some time and I just realized it. I just want to die of embarassment...**

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_Four-_

The Fourth Shinobi War is nothing they expect it to be; the wars before have been hard and slow, trudging conquests for one bridge or another, with burned-out strategists all trying to one-up each other. It's different this time: the fields are destroyed and the little villages too far for them to protect are being torched first, in a path of flame that's marching straight to Konoha's doorstop. And it's all happening before there's even time to recover from one strike; in less than eight years, Konoha is on the brink of loss.

Uchiha Madara has decided upon a war of attrition; he'll take Konoha down not by knocking their legs out from beneath them, but instead dipping their feet in acid. He'll destroy their trade routes and their resources and means of communicating battle information; cripple the united Shinobi villages with famine and fever, and then see who'll be so eager to give up their Jinchuuriki. Their enemies are no longer masked underlings; now they're the speckle-spots that appear when you're starving and you stand up too fast, the mad scramble to stay alive let alone in fighting shape.

There's no time for boys to reflect. It's time to grow up, as Naruto's generation run helter-skelter into their neighboring lands, praying they can stop Madara before there's no world for him to use his Tsuki no Me plan upon.

* * *

Rie has asked Lee to be late coming home; it upsets the children even more to see both parents not eating.

All three of the little faces like hers and his are bent around the small table, staring blankly into their half-empty bowls. Seiji has the boils on his face, the ones that have come with the new sickness. Everyone's too weak to fight it; there are even Jounin out there heaving and itching with it. But the ones before her are just children- and more importantly, her children. They're too frightened to ask about their father, too hungry not to wolf down their rice, and too spent to even cry. Fourteen, twelve, and nine, and they're already older than she was at twenty; there is no hell like the one you must live in with your loved ones, is there?

* * *

The village seems almost haunted by the Shinobi who have left, sent for the battle-front: to fight the mile-long wildfire of rebel Sasuke's Ametarasu, or connect with other Hidden Villages for supplies and military support. These comrades may or may not be dead yet, but their absences still add to the psychic friction.

There is never a question of whether they will allow the Kyuubi to fall into their enemy's hands: a life without choice is more objectionable than a massive death toll.

Madara has seven beasts on them- but Konoha has a flame that cannot be dampened by malaise or fear. Mothers, fathers and brothers all depart for the front lines, silently plucked into the mélange of battle by the randomized finger of the Konohagakure counsel.

When Lee and Rie are selected to leave, though, they all come close to breaking. They beg the grim-faced elders, weep unabashedly; but it's useless, because Sakura left her son and husband without provocation. It was her duty. It's their duty to save the world for the children they leave behind, and try to make it back for them. It's all they can do.

Soon the Rock's little house is empty; the Academy has become an inn for the orphans of war, and that's where the three Rock offspring go to be boarded. And the ghost count in Konoha increases by two.

* * *

Anyone who tells you that war is hell is dead wrong.

The first weeks, the rain is unbearable; in the half-assed camps, Lee and Rie, mercifully unseperated in their battle assignments, sleep sitting-up against each other's backs in the muddy soup and try not to fall. It is she that eventually succumbs, though, and Lee holds her head in his lap the whole night, unable to close his eyes. There are no words to describe the waiting, the horror of knowing what is coming straight to you. Failure is imminent, because no one dares talk about it.

They work day and night; there is no sleep for anyone, be they refugees chased by the huge number of natural disasters Akatsuki amassed power and created, or the little Irukas of the day watching their parents be slain by a phantasmal beast beyond their wildest nightmares. Through the merciless succession of earthquakes and bijuu spottings there are a minimum of words passed between Lee and his wife, glances shared through the veil of rain, and silent sacrifices for each other.

Neji is repatriated to their group, when a faction of paid-over villagers in the Grass Country swarm from their soggy land and attack the Konoha guard; reinforcement arrives too late, and most of the dissenters have been killed in self-defense, causing the frightened villagers of the area to distrust the Leaf ninja. It couldn't be avoided, but should have been. Life is nothing but these maddening conundrums, work, and fighting to the death. Fear for their homes. No sleep.

It's worse than hell.

* * *

Preteen Ayu is very much like her mother; she can bear increasing burdens (starvation, terror, having her parents taken away and her brothers removed to another part of the village) with sincere tenure, like the grappling, mighty posts of a tile-roofed temple. But when she reaches her limit, it is with a dramatic and immolating exasperation that she breaks. The effect is of a stone wall sliding into the ocean, an empathetic rock slide that cannot be bayed.

When word gets around that the Five-Tails has been loosed on the area where her parents were stationed, Ayu just disappears. She climbs under a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, where the children are working at any given hour: they fletch weapons and wash insects from the rice, or stare dumbly out the windows. Some are out in the fields, trying to coax anything edible from the ground. For three days, all there was nothing to eat were potato roots and salted sardines; Ayu has always had a mothering tendency towards her brothers, but it's out of control. She cannot be the parents of all the children in the understaffed and dirty Academy. Every night a new tangle of them are sobbing without noise when the word comes back: their parents, sisters, aunts and uncles are as dead-gone as the peace they only remember from storybooks. Ayu is overflowing; she wants reprieve, her safe little family, and to wake up in her own bed, having slept easily and safely. She does not remove from her hiding space or make a sound for the entire day, until her former classmate Uzumaki Karuo takes the issue up with the head of the orphanage.

Old Iruka-sensei patted Ayu's head gently, and allows Seiji and Komeyo to sleep in her futon, in the girl's dormitory, from then on. It's a small comfort; enough to hold her over until Neji and Tenten come back with wild greens, dry rice, bags of ashes and news. They tell her that neither Lee nor Rie were harmed.

* * *

15 Shinobi died that night, and around 50 villagers; the reason for the difference is because there were only 20 ninja the area to begin with. It was a rout, completely and utterly. The Five-Tail's massive, cloven hooves ate up the forest while they mooned, exhausted, and then it was upon them; bucket-mouth open and bellowing to the stars, black eyes shining with hell. Lee grabbed onto his wife, and yanked her from the doorframe of the temporary shelter before it exploded beneath the beast's weight. There is no bargaining with a mad demon; trees and shards of lives filled the air, dirt and blood and wood in a cyclone as they struggled to unleash attacks faster than the Gobi could dish them out. They could taste Neji's chakra as it encompassed them, a protective shield as an entire cleft of cliff collapsed upon the gathering. He spun endlessly, but the shield only lasts so long; from it Lee and Rie burst, her strings and his feet flying.

Zipping faster than their fears, Rie ensnared one tree-trunk leg of the beast and fed her energy into them calmly; the sharp pain of his ankle being nearly amputated hardly stunned the beast. Neji and Lee began running corkscrews, making the horse-creature shake it's head with frustration until it lost Lee. He comes slamming down with the full force of six Inner gates onto the beast's snout; the instant it buckles is more than enough time for Neji to draw up beneath the creature's towering legs and let his energy blow from every pore. His skin is flying off, it feels like, on fire.

Lee teleports to a particular cliff, his skin boiling red and every vein bulging with hate, forbidden strength, and rebounds to back up Rie. She is already on the creature's neck, sawing determinedly with a noose she had to dash to loop around Gobi's neck. He climbs, snatching fistfuls of fur to hold on while the creature bucks and snaps it's neck foolishly to bite at the pesty flies on it's head. Black, oily blood is flying; Tenten explodes up from the ground, soaring ever higher and higher; at the zenith of her climb the mighty scrolls strapped to her dainty shoulders open, and from them an entire army's worth of weaponry is sent exploding forward. Gobi shrieks, tramples the ground; a hiding handful of children disappear forever beneath it's shadow. People are screaming, crying even above the din of the battle; fires blink like lanterns from this swaying, buckling height. Rie is struck by how beautiful the sight is, how utterly destroyed and despondent the slate-gray world now is, when the fearsome and godless apparition of Jounin Lee takes dead aim for the animal's eyeball.

And all of this barely scratches Gobi. It retreats into the endless night with it's one blind eye, great sheets of blood exploding from it's wounds and coloring the land like acid rain, destroying everything in it's wake. Lee crushes her against the ground while it rumbles away, refusing to let her follow. She's ready to kill him and it, ready to end this war and go home- but it's all she can do to finally collapse with hatred and shuddering fear. She has no way of knowing that Ayu is having a similar reaction, but perhaps some part of her does, instinctively; and so she weeps the entire time they're carrying stringfuls of mangled corpses to the burning-grounds, her voice disguised by the keenings of a devastated land that will be scarred for generations to come.

And that's only the Five Tails.

Nothing changes for months. It's more battles like these, more lifeless bodies they can't bring home for hungry hearts and disbelieving parents. The skies turn crimson; they gain scars and lose limbs, but every inch of land retaken must be paid for in Allied blood.

* * *

Suna-nin triumph with Konoha's aid at the border of the Wind Country; Mizugakure has ever been able to hold it's own, but dominates with the Lightning Country alliance. They're able to blow the barrier back miles, and destroy two of the beasts. But Tobi has other plans, and a world is nothing against him. There's a scramble to kill him or find the Sealing Statue, whatever comes first. So few researchers are left in any country, all available forces being sent to fight, that it tries a quadra-country organization months to pick up on any lead. But once the base where the ancient sealing vessel is held is destroyed, it is finally determined: Madara is moving in for a final, desperate Kamikaze sweep of the weakened Konohagakure. Stomachs drop, hearts clench. No where on earth is safe, now.

Shikamaru volunteers to be Moses, to hold his arms up and lead the weakened Shinobi nations against Madara's six-beast army (plus more or less the entire population of Amegakure); Naruto backs them, against all recommendation, and Lee is right behind him. The ebony-haired man's leg was badly broken, but he's still smashing walls; no one knows how he does it, or cares; the taijutsu infantry are notably more expendable than other forces. What remains of the Inuzuka Clan (Kiba and his two teenaged sons), the Hyuugas (Hizashi was blinded and many of them killed in the joined battle against the Six Tails), Neji and Tenten; the entire lot of Aburames, hardy and not easily picked off. Rie stands with the Mizukage's personal forces, as Terumii-Mizukage-sama ordered; if they're all going down, she wants the students and comrades she loves close: Choujurou, Rie, Ao. Gaara, flanked by Temari and the brother he will lose by the end of this battle, leads from the east; the Raikage from the west. The battle of the ages has begun.

Naruto has the audacity to find his wife, and kiss her softly, very softly on the temple. Sakura just narrows her eyes, but admits to herself that she has never loved him more.

They save Konoha that day- or, at least what's left of the world.

* * *

They should have taught Komeyo better; they should have watched him better, punished him more, kissed him another time before they left. But it all matters nothing now, because what is lost cannot be regained.

The bloodbath at the gates was hardly deterring the phantasmal beasts; Amegakure-nin were splattered all over, mere insects to be trod upon along with the finest of Konoha's warriors. Hatake Kakashi is crushed that day, Godaime Tsunade dies of chakra expenditure and having her flesh flayed off by the Four-Tail's pyroclastic fire-breath. Ash rains; buildings burn and babies cry in the night. The evacuation into the endless forests of Ho No Kuni began when the creatures first crested the nearest hills. But the point was, there was a backing force to meet potential escapees. And Rie lead them right into it.

When the Konoha Academy came into sight, Rie and Lee both began ferrying children and civilians hurried through the quaking back-streets. Throwing themselves against the monsters was no longer top priority: some germ of this generation had to survive, and those were their orders. But Rie still could never shake the guilt of having brought her children to the killing-grounds.

It stung not to be able to recognize them, in the unwashed hoarde of terrified innocents; Seiji had scars from his sickness and facial hair now, and Ayu had grown so thin. But there was no time for reunions, and the children saw it in her eyes; Karuo snatched Ayu's hand before she could protest, and pulled her to his chest against the flaming rain of a burning billboard. As the weapons forces, led by a bloody-faced Tenten, resupplied at the Academy with the children's weaponry work, the refugees fled into the forest. There was a hope that some latent instinct in their blood would activate when they reached the forests, some magic in the chlorophyll.

It is Seiji, of all the screaming teenagers and weeping children- it is Seiji who freezes when the first, masked Rain Shinobi come dripping up from the dank ground. They've all run straight into a trap, with only Lee, Rie, and a few mildly-competent skeletons of villagers to outwit the captors. Lee and Rie fling themselves forward, trying their best to ignore the horrified children and elderly. Ayu and the other proto-genin immediately circle up around the defenseless, drawing kunai. It's the traditional, suicidal formation that's basically a phalanx: a shield made of bodies.

They've been trained rather well.

But not well enough, because Seiji is frozen in place. Seiji's eyes are fixed on the horrific sight of the Shichibi Seven-Tails breaching over the exploding remnants of Konoha's skyline, and he does the unthinkable: he trips. He falls straight out on the ground, and the Shinobi are on him like flies. Rie screams, and Lee whips around in time to notice that he'll never reach his oldest son in time. The Rain Shinobi lifts his curved blade; time slows.

But someone is close enough to save him. Time stops for no mouse, but the entire world paused when Komeyo leapt in front of the blow meant for his brother. The sound of his little body being halved, of Seiji gasping and having his mouth filled by blood, were remembered forever in some vestibule of the universe. Rie bolted over in the moment, snatching the fifteen-year old against her and catapulting backwards. Lee set off a smoke bomb, and shady, terrible things happened. And then the threat was gone.

All that remained then was Lee screaming without words, on his busted-out knees on the ground by the collection of corpses, by his son's legs; Rie crushing Komeyo's bleeding upper half against her as if not to see the horror, not to look at his gasping, white face. Seiji opening his dry mouth, and the great, animal shriek as the unleashed Kyuubi died. Naruto standing on the Second Hokage's nose, holding the seal. He would sacrifice his Jinchuuriki, that life, in order to at least immobilize the dark, Uchiha presence before him. The other Uchiha, the one who had been at Madara's side all along, was being gutted along the length of Sakura's _wakizashi_ blade somewhere nearby. It was fitting, but altogether wrong and right at the same time; Sakura no longer loved Sasuke. He smiled as he died.

* * *

More than the entire sum of all the battles before this one died in Konohagakure that day. And we're sorry to say that no miraculous bird rose from their ashes; just the stench of death, the anarchy of mayhem and madness- and the little mice, of course. The little mice who can survive anything.

They never said anything, and that's what made it so bad; they never blamed Seiji, cried out, or ostracized him from the family. There was so much to think about in the aftermath of the war that no one got around to talking with Seiji about what had happened.

There were broken pottery shards, mounds upon mounds of it, and broken weapons to pile; there were more bodies than could be cremated, goodbyes and promises to be made- a new Tsuchikage to be chosen, a replacement for the Mizukage's personal guard. The duties of the dead Umino Iruka, Akimichi Chouzou, and Genma have to be filled, among plenty of others. It hardly seemed like they had won, to be honest- but Madara was gone, the beasts exterminated or sealed with the help of an outpouring of volunteered chakra (several hundred died in this endeavor alone). The streets had to be cleared, food found and children relocated.

Most families didn't even have time to find each other until about a week afterwards.

* * *

They all met at the corner where their favorite _dango_ stand had regularly opened. Fires were still raging all the way to the Kumogakure border, but Lee and Rie had been assured that they wouldn't be sent out. It was about time they went home, Naruto said wearily. In spite of this, the scorched passageways of shelled buildings no longer seemed familiar, let alone the obliterated corner house that had once belonged to the Rock clan.

They stood, looking at it for a while; Lee had his broken-unto-death arm curled against his collar bone like a chicken wing, and he couldn't stop shaking. They had no idea where Gai was, where Hinata and Tenten or anyone they knew could be; it was all overwhelming even his personality, and he just stared like a cow. Rie was ramrod-stiff beside him. Her deep wounds would become infected within the week, terrifying them all, but for now only the face-splitting gash from chin to swollen left eye made her seem mortal. Seiji and Ayu stood in their rags, the words stolen from them.

And then Lee picked up his little girl, as if she weighed no more than a feather. He cried as he had never cried before, and didn't stop even while they gathered concrete blocks and timber; even when they had all huddled up beneath a temporary shelter for the night, like puppies curled against one another for warmth. When he and Rie still sandwiched their remaining offspring between them, the children cried as well- Ayu for the security, and Seiji for the guilt he could not even begin to name.

* * *

Life is indominable. People rise slowly back to their humanity; an explosion of procreation occurs in Konoha, as desperate survivors congregate and feebly try to reconcile the horrors of what they have seen.

Neji won't come to bed at night; Tenten stays awake waiting for him, sharing the Hyuuga compound as she is, but he takes his sweet time. The shorn, gristled version of the dancing boy who tried to cap other's dreams stands in the night, picking jasmine buds and staring into the night. He's configuring a plan, which does not become clear until the day he asks to speak with his uncle in private.

When she hears that Neji is seeking to dominate the Hyuuga clan via readmission to the Main Family, she's enraged; Tenten actually slaps him, which surprises them both. She can't believe that he would be so callous in this obvious time of sorrow and devastation. Who cares about your measly title, she asks; why should the way your family wronged you in the past matter more than building a new life now? With me, she wants to add, but doesn't.

But it's about time to fix some things, Neji tells her with yellow hate in his eyes. For the good of the new world.

* * *

Sakura loses a baby in the first trimester; she decides not to tell Naruto about it. He's been a tad depressed of late, since relinquishing his title as Hokage. It has to be so, until he finds another strength like the Nine-Tailed Fox. Konoha must be protected, but despite his Hokage intent, it still rankles him in that old way that someone is more capable than him right now despite his heroic status.

They're both way too young to be dealing with lost dreams, corroded villages; dead children and the shell of what their nation has become. It's time to rebuild; they'll have another baby one day.


	4. Three

**AN: ... Um, moo?**

* * *

_Three-_

"ROCK LEE, GET THAT CHILD!"

Lee obliges his harried wife by snatching the flying bundle of calico; Ayu squeals at her sudden flight, and is heaved accordingly onto her father's shoulder in the manner of a duffel bag. He comes soaring through the small home, ducking to pass through the doorway; looking slightly frazzled and very disheveled, the aubergine-haired Rie manages a smile that makes his whole body shudder still.

"Aha! Caught our little fish, did you?"

"My sweet fish," he rescinds, before blowing a huge raspberry into his daughter's exposed tummy. It's a play on her name, which Gai figured out roughly two seconds after they'd stamped the name on her birth certificate. Besides 'water song', Ayu is also the name of an obscure sushi fish. It's just something that would happen in the Rock family, and it's a part of life now.

A part of their happy, family life.

"Come on, come on!" Rie bustles; from the back rooms appears eight year-old Seiji, blinking in the afternoon light with a backpack strung over his shoulders. He fell asleep studying some old martial arts _manga_, and startles to consciousness when Lee ruffles his equally-maroon hair. Ayu has Lee's eye and hair color, and their first son only the eyes; Seiji has openly commented that any future siblings of his might as well be taken out and shot with purple and black paintballs, for the unfortunate genetic combination of Lee and Rie (Most likely he's just bitter about having giant, purple eyebrows).

Lee flips his sable-haired daughter over and lets her loose. Rie is fussing over two boiling pots on the stove, plus Seiji's blank refusal to wear a sweater. As if things couldn't get any more chaotic, Gai appears.

"Hi, kiddos!" he shouts, and both Ayu and Seiji go flying into his wide embrace. Lee used to be the most fantastic kid in the world to Gai, as shown by their committed relationship to this day. But now that Lee has produced 'grandchildren' for him, the perfect-child status has recently shifted in Gai's mind.

"Who wants some money!?" "Do we have to fight you for it?" Seiji asks excitedly.

"Absolutely!" the elder Green Beast responds. "And I've already pulled out the couch cushions for you, Ayu! We'll make your fort as soon as we get home, and have a battle for YOUTH!" Triumphant whoops resound; Lee just shakes his head, and then laughs to discover that Rie has anticipated him.

"You're brainwashing my children, Sensei." the woman sighs. "I've spawned two more for the Green Beast cause…"

"No, no. It's not that." Gai reassures her with a wave of his hand. "They just love me because I'm the best possible role model for their young, exceptional minds. Plus they're the most easily-pleased, polite, and fantastic children in the world."

"Rie-chan, surely you do not doubt Gai-sensei's magnanimous supervision of our offspring?"

"Gai-sensei is the best!" Ayu pouts; she very quickly scales the man's front, climbs into his arms, and clutches both sides of his face as though it were made of rubber. "I _love_ him." Gai melted with an audible sigh.

The woman merely laughs at this Inquisition. "I love him, too." Rie responds, handing her son a steaming container of _tempura_. Gai is easily paid: in food. "I just hope he can handle _two_ little Lees without going nuts…"

Ayu stated that being 'nuts' wasn't such a bad state, to everyone's humor, and then they all were off: the kids were spending the weekend at their 'Uncle Gai's', as they vastly preferred, because Lee and Rie were both due for a teacher's conference early tomorrow morning. Rie was a very skilled teacher of young Academy students, in whom she inspired rightful fear, and Lee taught supplementary taijutsu classes when he had spare time.

… Like right now.

The silence shocked them both for a minute; it was so rare for the house to be silent. A quiet smile slowly curved over Lee's face.

"They're gone," he said conspiratorially.

Shutting off the burner, Rie flipped her hair coquettishly and grinned over her shoulder. "Yeah, well before the fun starts, you should know- our last 'alone time' was successful. I'm pregnant."

And he reacted exactly the same way he had the past two times: Lee snatched her by the waist and spun her in a circle, laughing happily…only this time, Rie swore in a rather unfeminine manner as her head struck the overhanging pot rack and her foot the opened drawer beneath the oven. She rubbed her head and tried to look very annoyed with him, but only lasted another second or so.

"This is what life is supposed to be," she said into his neck. "Thank you, Rock Lee."

"No." he responded breathily, clutching her closely and beginning to go into Passion of Youth Mode."I should thank you for putting up with me…"

"If you'd pop some steamed buns in the microwave while I rest these weary angel feet…perhaps I'd feel more merciful."

"Of course," he said, laughing in the almond scent of her hair. "Of course." And just for good measure, he spun her again, carefully.

* * *

It would be easy enough to suspect that Konoha was without threat. You could have watched Neji and Tenten playfully chasing one another through the trees, or Naruto giving his two year-old son real kunai to play with, and thought that Konohagakure was a peaceful place. You'd be wrong, of course- but it never hurts to assume. Does it?

… Well, yes. Yes, it does. Just how everyone in Konoha had assumed that when Uchiha Madara faded into the mists of their svelte world, he was gone for good; or that when Uchiha Sasuke dropped off the face of the earth, he was contemplating a more innocuous position in life having killed his brother.

All of these misconceptions would tilt the world severely on it's axis.

* * *

"NO!" Karuo shouted, yanking his kunai pack away from Jiraiya. Shinobi children are odd in this way: when injured, they don't cry or gad about. They get even. In a few minutes, the oldest dark-blonde Uzumaki child found his kneecaps being attacked by said younger brother.

"!$$!!" MOOOMM!!"

"I'm going to bury you both in the ground," Sakura warned from the Hokage's office. She had made the mistake of hauling both children with her on a small errand to pick up some papers. "And stop swearing!"

"!$$!!" Ayu repeated helpfully, causing Gai to clap a hand over her small mouth. He kept it there as the threesome shuffled into the mahogany room and greeted Sakura with stiff bows.

"Haruno-san, greetings and salutations…"

"You are definitely your father's son." the pink-haired woman said smilingly of Seiji. "Hey, Ayu-chan," she called to the little girl. "What does your great big lunk of a grandpa want, that he'd drag both of you here?"

"We're here to pick up my new team's dossier," Gai answered unaffectedly, to which the little girl nodded her pig-tailed head ferociously.

"Well, happy hunting. I'm looking for a mission report here, and we know how _good_ Naruto is at keeping his paperwork organized… Set the little maniacs down and I'll help you. Maybe they can occupy my boys for a while…"

Ayu, by this time, had scampered down and into the next room. Seiji strolled into the office and exchanged a serious glance with Karuo; little Jiraiya, whom Sakura had begrudgingly allowed Naruto to name, was still attached to his brother's leg. Ignoring the gnawing sounds and obvious discomfort Karuo was in, Ayu clutched her hands and strolled up prettily to the freckled Uzumaki boy. "Hello, Karuo-kun." she titillated, batting her thick eyelashes.

"Stop it. You're too young to have a boyfriend," her older brother scolded. Gai laughed, and began sorting through a random stack of important-looking documents. He noticed that Sakura's forehead creased when she browsed one piece of paper, which she very quickly hid beneath one of the numerous stacks that surrounded her.

* * *

"How could you not tell me?""Geez, _I _hadn't even seen it yet," Naruto swore quietly. "Do you think I wouldn't share this with you if I knew it?"

"I don't know," she snapped back. "Seems like we hardly talk about Sasuke nowadays, and I can't imagine why, if he's been spotted on the move again!"

"No, you wouldn't."

"… And what is that supposed to mean!? He's an enemy of Konoha, and I have a right to know-"

"I also have a right to not be still competing with him for your attention," the whiskered young man spat as he flipped over to face her in the dark. "All this time and you'll still fixate on him like we're Genin again…"

"You dickhead." Sakura deadpanned. "Are you honestly saying you think I still have _feelings_ for him-"

"See, this is why I don't say anything." he said, rolling back over. "Because you can't let him go, even now. You still want to save him-"

"He was my teammate!"

"-And I'm your husband!" he fairly shouted. "Maybe I don't want the possibility of Sasuke tearing apart what we have now. Is that such a crime?"

"If you wake up the kids, I'll kill you… Oh my god, this is so inane. You're jealous because I want to protect my country and be informed?"

"You're damn right! I'm jealous because I love you even when you're a bitch, even when you're sick or crabby, and Sasuke has never done anything to deserve your concern! I'm the Hokage! I will take care of him!"

"I can't believe we're talking about this." she said succinctly; the mattress squeaked as she rolled to it's outmost edge. "You're the one who spent years training to bring him back, fought and wouldn't shut up about it..."

"Yes, it is." Naruto agreed, his shoulders tensing. "But I did what I had to for my village, and that was give up hope in him. You can't imagine how hard that was."

Sakura was dead silent for a moment; cicadas crowed their death songs outside the window. "But I can't give up, Naruto. It's not a part of me. You can't imagine what it's like to care for someone who's so far away…"

Actually, Naruto reflected, he could: she was lying right beside him, albeit behind a wall he was frantically trying to dismember.

* * *

The bells throughout the Inuzuka compound rang, jarring Hinata from her sound sleep.

"PIDDLE TIME," Kiba's deep voice rang out. Instantly every surface in the house roiled alive with dogs bounding up from their various sleeping-spots. Akamaru, who preferred to lie under the bed, rose up and fairly sent Hinata rolling onto the floor. This disturbance fully roused both the lavender-eyed woman and the small son curled at her side, and the pair startled up like birds with severe bedhead. From the doorway, Kiba just laughed at them, and went to check on the newest litter of puppies Hana's dog had bourn. One of them was determined for his son, when the time came about.

Standing on a solitary plane, Uchiha Sasuke idly watched the backsplash of tide rushing against time-told rocks of the shore, marveling at the heavy, hurricane-eye of stillness within his soul. The time was coming.

"You ready?" Madara asked in his poison-laced voice.

"Mm-hmm." the raven-haired child of Darkness mumbled. He was ready to destroy Konoha, and all it stood for.

He could hear it on the horizon, and all of the Inuzuka dogs could smell it, too: the massive clomping of war pounding the ground as it marched towards the Village_._


	5. Two

**A/N: Yes, I _know _there's no market for OCs anymore, but I'll never forgive myself if I don't post the start of Rie and Lee's life together. I mean, the end. I mean- Augh. I love this format, but it's kind of hard to pull off...**

*** Good news if you _do_ like LeeOCs, however- I'm starting a new one that's sure to grab your attention. Start Alert-ing me!**

_

* * *

_

_Two-_

She comes back from Mizugakure with sharper shoulders, a more angular face and something dark. It takes Lee a long while to see what it is, because it's thinly disguised behind the grabby little wisps of pheromone he suddenly can't ignore. It's like chasing a bird; he can watch forever, as long as she lets him. She'll eat out of the palm of his hand; but one move and she backs up into the sky with glittering eyes, beyond his touch. It's not at the festival, or when they're training and she grabs his foot because he's so absent-minded; it's not when she comes strolling up the dusty hill to the front gates, or when he passes out walking her home and she sleeps on the floor to let him have her bed- no. Lee knows he could never love anyone else when she shows him what that dark is, and how far she'll go to save him from it.

* * *

The trouble starts before Rie comes back; it feels like his heart throbs when he thinks of her all of the sudden, and Lee knows very well that he has a bit of a crush on her. But it seems to only last while she's gone, because when she comes back, he's not hard-pressed to act untitillated. She's barely thought of him, her behavior says…unlike Sakura, who teases him and makes cutting remarks about his wardrobe. He must have mixed the girls up in his mind, he thinks ruefully; surely love is all about the interaction.

But as this feeling unfolds, it's stronger than it is around Sakura; it's a new vulnerability behind Rie's face that draws him in, something sensual about just being near. It's always seemed like she's had so much to say, and now he can sense that Rie is about to burst with things she can't betray to him. But she wants to, and that keeps him creeping ever closer, trying to catch the pretty birdy.

He first thinks this the night Rie tags along for a reconnaissance mission to Sunagakure sometime after Gaara's rescue. They camp by the side of the road one night, and some time in the night, Lee wanders up from between Gai and Neji's curled, warm forms, and heads for the bushes. Rie is sleeping prudently about ten feet from them all, being the only female, and he steps quietly near her in his quest. But before he can make it past, though, she is up; faster than he thought it was possible. Her leg knits around his calf, her left hand in a crushing, talon-like grip against his top vertebrae. He freezes in mid-step, completely caught off guard. Rie's eyes roll back into their sockets, and she releases him, stepping backward. The warm death of her hands still stings on his neck; it's an assassination technique, one that would have paralyzed him had she applied any more pressure.

"Lee…" she tests into the night air, her storm-gray eyes swimming a foot from his face. She drops her hands to her sides with shame, steps back towards her sleeping bag. "I'm sorry," she says lamely.

"No," he grins after a while, to disarm her. "You are very alert, Rie-chan. I will be sure not to scare you again!" He doesn't mention that he no longer has to pee, just heads back to the boy's section. But secretly he is strategizing, knowing that he's just entered a game he can never hope to escape.

No one is the same after that night. The steel in Rie's irises is gone, and Lee becomes at once more enamored and more concerned with what has happened to the stingy, respectfully disdainful little girl he once knew. The world is growing blacker at the edges, as international troubles loom; having some clue of the strange oligarchy in Amegakure, Tsunade sends a team of Chunin out to scout for evidence of Jiraiya. He has been gone a month now, after setting out to find his old student.

* * *

They don't make it to the Rain Country; Pein has eyes everywhere, not just in the rain, and it takes someone like a Sannin to even make it to the village. The five-man cell of Lee, Rie, Sakura, Shino, and now Neji stand no chance against the border guards near Kusagakure, who have gone from suffering under Orochimaru's oppression to the identical limbo of being Pein's subordinates. The hostility of their attack is evidence to their boredom and agitation, being on the fringe of things. While swatting away Shino's bugs, a group of them are fighting over who will get Sakura first and what they will do to her.

The desperation in Sakura's eyes, as she flees, causes something in Lee to cry out in protective urge; but it's the same glimmer in Rie's pale face, especially when her leg is cut clear to the bone by enemy kunai. By the end of the fight her arm is fractured in several places, and her collar bone is broken. She is by far the worst off; her fighting style leaves even less defense from long-range attacks than Lee's does. He is injured while trying to protect Neji's blind spot, an act that irrevocably allows Shino to overwhelm the lot of them, that one mighty blow by Sakura traps the screaming lot in a mausoleum of earth. Their enemies have been buried alive, and the Konoha Five don't turn back; they've got to warn the Hokage of the Grass Country's subjugation as soon as possible.

"Stay," she tells them, like a dog, before sealing the cave wall before them. There's no time to carry back the wounded, as enemy reinforcements are likely on the way. The Leaf ninja have to return with their cavalry first, and so the decision is made to leave Rie and Lee behind. Neither are in any condition to keep pace with their comrades; it goes without saying that they are the bait, to keep the enemy searching in the general area until help arrives. Rie sighs in tune with the earth as Sakura flitters away; they have saved the group, and now must save themselves in this hostile territory.

It sometimes happens that even ninja get disoriented; it also happens that forests loop on forests, and the rain obscures any stone orifices where you might deposit a dying comrade. The only sign of life in days is the convoy of the Kusa Daimyo, trundling to Konoha in order to make legal apologies for his country's slight. Kusagakure will be barred to outside visitors until the mess is sorted out, they know, and Lee can no longer feel his leg by the time the ground is dry enough for them to attempt escape. They just have to stick it out, if they can. They must, and that knowledge is the most lethal toxin to their will.

Lee's wounded knee becomes septic; it swells to the size of a cabbage, which he cleans with the dribbling, acidic water from the cave walls. Rie is in too much pain to speak very much, but her suffering is finite compared to the mortal danger that Lee's life is in. Biting a mouthful of leaves to keep from shouting, Lee deftly cares for his wound, refusing the last of the antiseptic ointment; there's not enough left to help him, he knows.

Dying, Lee is strangely calm. He thought it would be more climatic than this: fever-dreams upon the gaping mouth of the sparkling cave ceiling, his body contorting and wretching in rebellion from the pain and hunger. He's brave, but somehow not so, as if he were a sleepy child with no real concept of reality. It is only the last night, when he is contemplating this, that Rie dares to build a small fire. She watches him from across it, and for the first time, Lee says anything at all about death.

She is quiet for a very, very long time. And then he is in the hospital, clad in white and drinking foul medications every two hours to quell his raging blood infection. He vaguely remembers a warmth by his side, and swatting at it vaguely, thinking his clothing had caught fire; but then there is ash, and the thin face of a medic-nin bent over him; blackness. They set Rie's bones and she is out of the hospital a day before him.

He keeps thinking about that fire, and about the way the girls he loves looked at him during that horrible mission.

* * *

Lee is a master of healing things, including himself. He keeps no scars from that day in the Grass Country, but there is still a scratch that won't heal; a twitchy leaping in his chest, a little mouse in the empty part of his brain that wonders what Rie is so afraid of. Sakura is back to herself, but Rie just keeps going downhill. He tries to watch over her constantly, walks her home and force-feeds her some horrible health concoctions that Gai has at least once force-fed him. A few months before his eighteenth birthday, when everything is getting better, two things happen: Rie gets called into the Hokage's office, and on their way back to training, she reaches out and takes his hand.

The years of devotion to Sakura are gone so quickly that Lee sometimes feels a touch bad, as if he should apologize to her; but if Sakura's offended, she conceals it very well. Lee was content in that wordless male way before, but the world is suddenly brighter- he has a _girlfriend_, who looks only at him with those sweet, stormy eyes, with whom he shares brief, tentative kisses and relentlessly mushy optimism (Gai is out of his mind with happiness). And there's nothing else: just the security of their 'updated' relationship, nothing more.

Lee knows he'd gladly shoulder Rie's every trouble, but it never occurs to Lee that he must _tell _her this. It seemed so natural to him, it strikes him as odd that she didn't know.

But he tells her, nonetheless, when it matters: one evening they idle on to his warped-plaster, one-room apartment, which Lee keeps immaculately tidy for her occasional visits. Usually they drink tea and read nonsense books, or talk for ages, but it's different this time; their mouths stay together long enough for him to get drunk on the smell of her flesh, and it's swiftly going somewhere else, somewhere it's never been before. In a few seconds Lee comes to his senses and yanks her away at arm's length; it takes him a moment longer to realize that he's still holding onto her backside and let go. His mouth dries and his sweat freezes; he feels shocked, unabashedly ashamed. How could he?

How could he not, she asks him, if he cares?- to which he gives the Springtime of Youth rant and backs slowly away from her as if she were a bomb. It'd taint their youth; there's no way he would disrespect a girl like that; while Lee stumbles over the dissembled tangles of his brain trying to apologize, Rie just looks at him with something deeper than longing, stronger than anything he's ever felt. He can't be trusted, he says; and even though she protests, creeps closer and riddles her fingers down his chest, he commands her to leave, to the point that both of them are shouting: she doesn't want to leave and he's almost angry that she keeps insisting, that he's ready to give in- and the truth of his affection goes unsaid until he finally speaks of it:

"No! I won't take that from you! I love you!"

It shuts her up. And Rie does the unthinkable; she cries. She stands stiffly against his chest and sobs, and he simply holds her; nothing more. She cries forever, until her legs give out and they're sitting on the floor, Lee on the verge of breaking down himself. It turns out that Rie has been assigned the particular mission which all kunoichi dread: an assassination involving seduction, where the possibility of something going wrong is high enough to make virgins worry. Young girls get picked for them all the time, some as young as thirteen in Mizugakure; Rie says she saw it while she was training there, and there's nothing to do. Sometimes it's the only way to disarm a powerful man. She doubts she'll have the strength, is so scared and chased and just wanted to make sure that if she did get hurt that way- because she really does love him and- she's so sorry, so sorry…

Lee doesn't let her finish; he just closes her in his strong arms, and promises that nothing in the world could make him love her less. He can't make the world stop spinning or save her from this, they both know- but he asks her, doesn't she know that some things _are _sacred, and she just has to believe in herself- and him? Doesn't she know he'd never allow something like that to happen as long as he lives, and that he'd rip out the larynx of anyone who so much as looked cross-eyed at her? She laughs at the last bit, and hugs his neck until it hurts; he doesn't mind. She knows now, that Lee is guarding all of those weak spots she had.

Rie comes home from that mission looking tired but relieved, and Lee keeps his distance for two, almost three years. Until he's sure that it's a promise he can keep; until she believes not only in his wild passion for her but his quiet respect and utter worthiness of a truer and more perfect love than she can ever provide.

Sakura really, really missed out on a good man.

* * *

Rie will have many opportunities to repay Lee for the consolation he gave her that night, in the decades that they are married. But that anxiety comes back occasionally, no matter how ardently Lee tries to protect her. One day as he's leaving for a mission to Iwagakure, Rie asks him what the worst thing possible is. Lee could guess, but he doesn't say: he kisses her temple softly, and then kisses the taut bulge in her stomach for good measure. He tells her not to let their first child pop out until he gets back, gives her that bowed look that professes 100 percent of his adoration; it's almost blinding to look upon. She stands in the door, watching his back disappear down the road.

No, they can't stop the world; but they can keep going for each other, she thinks.

And then her water breaks.


	6. One

_One-_

The Forest knows all.

This is all Lee can think as he dodges and swipes, dashes and flees from an enemy that embodies the very leaves; the Forest knows that he does not belong here, and the sinking weight of this manifests as faces in every dark shade of a single leaf; grotesque, demonized expressions contorting with the calm sashay of shadows as an icy chill rents the dark bowels of this killing-field. Being a Shinobi is no longer a game, and it's more than vests on the line in the Konoha Chuunin Exams. It feels like an entirely different atmosphere, pressing down on him; the weight of another, binding sky. Lee lands in a neat tangle of limbs, silent and swift with all the ardor of his youth, onto the Forest floor.

When he looks up, he is staring straight into the gray eyes of a purple-haired young girl, who seems as shocked to see him as he her. In her lap are about fiteen large Forest mice, their compliant button-eyes shining as they follow the riceball she is feeding them.

And the rest is history...

* * *

"They're wrong," she whispers.

There isn't much to do in this situation; Lee has awoken from the dread-tide of the medications, his limbs aching, hollow and hungry for drugs and solace; he will not find the latter, of course, in this hospital or anywhere else. This is an apathetic world, that isn't supposed to produce girls like Rie, who catch his head before it hits the ground and shout, shout at Sakura for being too shallow to deserve the affection that he has to give as they all sit in the courtyard, doomed. She didn't know Lee was conscious; doesn't now, and he can't very well twitch to interrupt what could be a seriously awkward moment. The tinge of Rie's breath against his broad back, her weeping as it flows through his pajamas and into his skin, soul, makes him want to, though. And yet he can't; he's frozen by what her small, strained voice says to his sleeping form:

"They're wrong, Lee-kun. I've never been this sure of anything in my life… You were meant to be great. No one has helped you earn this- nobody could. It takes a separate heart to have the strength you do, and… and I know you won't falter. You'll become an even more Splendid Shinobi… and I'll do whatever I can to help you. I promise. On my life. I owe you it…because you're the best friend I've ever had."

* * *

"_What_ were you thinking?" she asks, in the absent fashion she adopts when she's trying to keep from crying. Her hair is a billow of aubergine, splaying with her T-shirt in the breeze; the herd of mice at her feet are crouched low to the ground, but do not retreat to hiding places because of the dumpling that Rie is slowly shredding and feeding to them. She just loves mice.

"I had to," he explains, even though she knows. He doesn't have to ask for her approval; he's glad to know he already has it. Lee smiles ruefully, twiddles his thumbs on his knees as he watches her turned back. He might have been outmatched back there, drunk as a skunk- but he would have killed Kimimaro to save her, he knows. He would have come through for her.

He's like a mouse, but not drawn to her for the food.

She shakes her shoulders; the trees shudder, their leaves preparing for the long Autumn of death; it leads to the Spring of new birth, as always, in timeless cycles that never betray us. Their friendship seems as tangible as the earth's seasonal tilt; simply sunshine, unshakable.

"Good," Rie murmurs, her head still turned. "I'm going to Mizugakure," she announces after a few moments of silence; child-style, their lives are so malleable right now.

"But, why? You have to help me train for-"

"I don't have to help you do _anything_," she retorts, a playful smile gracing her thin lips as she finally gazes over her shoulder at him. "I have to go and train as hard as I can, and hope that I'll find the bravery and strength of heart that you have, Lee-kun… I want to get stronger… to have the kind of strength that you do, so someday, maybe I'll get to protect you for a change."

* * *

A few nights later, a mouse comes to his window, as if God knew.

Lee gives him a bit of his riceball; he watches the little male, black and grey spotted, infalliable in his small corner of the universe, take the crumb and lumber off for parts unknown. The mouse never stops; it hoards what it needs and faces cat claws without an iota of fear-born paralysis or apathy. Its the master of the dark places and the smallest paths; its an ignoble and forgotten animal, just like all the most admirable things in the world.

He waves a few bandaged fingers after the creature in farewell, and promises to ask Rie if that's why she likes mice so much, when she comes back.

* * *

**AN: ... And that's it. The mystery of the mice, solved. ^o^**

**The truth of application to our lives is that this is what love is supposed to be: fleeting moments cemented together by a regard that's bigger than our own selves; abstract moments of dedication and truth that come together to form a beautiful story. This is we all should strive for: a love that lasts six chapters and sixty years, and that we look back on if we're blessed enough to grow old with nothing but appreciativeness for our good fortune. **

**Yeah, kind of foppish for a fanfiction, I know... but I've loved every minute of this story, and I hope you have, too. Thanks for reading.**


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